A U.S. drone strike purportedly targeting a suspected ISIS-K vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan killed at least 10 members of a single family—including six children—as they were getting out of their car on Sunday.
Relatives of the victims told the Washington Post that the strike—which was the second attack the U.S. carried out in Kabul over the weekend—”hit a nearby vehicle” that the Pentagon claims was an “imminent” threat.
The civilian victims of the U.S. strike were all “from a single extended family,” the Post reported.
Samim Shahyad, a 25-year-old journalism student, told the New York Times that the U.S. attack killed his father, his two brothers, four of his young cousins, his niece, and his sister’s fiancé. Shahyad added that three of the victims were girls who were just two years old or younger.
One neighbor at the scene of the attack said in an interview with CNN that “not much is left of their house and nothing can be recognized, they are in pieces.” The person estimated that as many as 20 people may have been killed in the U.S. drone strike.
“Yet another reason why the U.S. must leave Afghanistan,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The military presence, and the civilian deaths it’s brought, has become a key recruiting tool for terrorists.”
Read More: US Drone Attack Kills at Least 10 Afghan Civilians Including 6 Children
